And the Meek Shall Inherit
by dilly2
Summary: A young Tom Riddle dreams of one day becoming a superhero.
1. Meek

Title: And the Meek Shall Inherit  
Pen Name: dilly  
Website: http://www.prefectsbathroom.com  
Feedback: headgirl@prefectsbathroom.com   
Rating: PG-13  
Primary pairing: None  
Summary: A young Tom dreams of one day becoming a superhero.  
  
He had always been scrawnier than the other boys his age. In fact, he could be mistaken for a boy two or three years younger. Of course they teased him. The stronger always flock to the meek lest they should come across someone stronger yet. He knew this because he also spent his time with things that couldn't hurt him. People that he created of pen and paper.Short stories. He'd always write himself in. And he was strong. More powerful than they could ever be.  
  
Most of his weakling adversaries of the written word held a strange resemblance to one Geoffrey Klein. A large boy at twelve years with a haircut that made his face unpleasantly square. Geoff usually left him alone while he was hiding in his little corner of the orphanage, a window sill in the old infirmary which was, technically, off limits for the children because of the dusty bottles that still held bits of medicinal opium and the many sharp, rusty instruments. None of the adults ever caught him there. None of them cared enough to find the skinny little good-for-nothing, too small even for manual labour.  
  
Yes, usually they left him to his musty old room with his rusty old knives and stories. But Geoff, as he had learned in the years they'd known one another, was not one to leave well enough alone.  
  
He'd been deep in thought, illustrating a portion of his story in the empty margin in which the muscular-but-fundamentally-stupid-square-headed boy was crushed under a large chandelier through the wit and cleverness of the mighty Tom Marvolo Riddle.   
  
"Tom Marvolo Riddle," he said aloud with a frown. "That doesn't sound at all mighty." He stared down at the place where he'd written his own name. He'd never liked it. It wasn't his name. It was his father's. His fool of a mother had left him inscribed forever as his father's son. He never added the "Jr." to the end of it. He was quite certain that his father never added the "Sr."  
  
"Maybe if I..."  
  
"What's this, then, Riddle?" The paper was snatched out of his hand. He looked up, startled. He'd been so deep in thought that he hadn't heard the door creep open or the footsteps approach him. Yet there stood Geoff, towering over him. Tom leapt off of his sill and grabbed for the paper, which Geoff easily held out of his grasp.  
  
"Give it back!" It was meant as a roar, but it came out as little more than a squeak.  
  
"Or what?" Geoff said with a sneer. "You'll beat me up?"  
  
This was Tom's cue to run. To hide. Or to quake in fear while pleading and bargaining for his life.  
  
It was not his cue to yell back at the top of his lungs: "Yeah! I WILL!"  
  
He was so angry, so blinded by anger that he didn't fully realise that Geoff was flying across the room until he hit one of the cabinets with a sickening crack and a thundering crash.  
  
Tom approached him slowly unable to really take it in. A huge piece of the old wooden cabinet had splintered off and lodged itself through Geoff's stomach. Geoff was staring down at himself with huge eyes. Tom didn't understand. It didn't make sense. He hadn't even touched him. He couldn't be bleeding to death on the dusty infirmary floor.  
  
"H-how..." Geoff said in a choked voice. He looked up at Tom. There was something like horror in his eyes. "Riddle... how...?"  
  
"I'm not Riddle," he said in a quietly, his eyes trailed down to the bit of paper still clutched in the boy's hand.  
  
"Who...?"  
  
"I am..." he started near a whisper, but his voice grew. His voice boomed off the walls back into his own ears. He'd never heard himself sound so fantastic.. and brilliant, and superb and terrific and SPLENDID! "I am LORD VOLDEMORT!" 


	2. The Sores

Title: The Sores  
Pen Name: dilly  
Website: http://www.prefectsbathroom.com  
Rating: PG-13  
Primary pairing: None  
Summary: Tom is punished for what he did to Geoffery.

* * *

They didn't notice the sores until he passed out during breakfast two weeks after the first one had appeared. 

It had been on his arm. He woke up and found it one morning. Wondered where it had come from. It didn't hurt, so he ignored it. The second one was on his belly, the third on his thigh, the fourth on his shoulder. When the fifth appeared on his neck, he began to wear his ragged little scarf whenever he was around anyone. 

He knew why it was happening. It was his punishment. For getting angry. For throwing Geoffery Klein across the room with his thoughts. (It must have been his thoughts, what else could it have been?) He was trying not to get angry anymore. But after they'd found out what had happened (A tragic accident, a mystery. How could a scrawny thing like that hurl a big, healthy boy into a cabinet and kill him?) they'd treated him differently. Peered at him in the hallways with this slowly swelling trepidation that made him shiver as he struggled to hold down the emotion welling up inside of him. He'd never wanted to hurt anyone. Their looks handed him a life sentence at the age of ten. Their looks bore holes into his skin so solid and so real that they left marks. 

When the sixth sore appeared on his hand, he had to wear gloves. Gloves and a scarf in August. It didn't help the boiling in his stomach. The rage that made his skin hot and pink. Sometimes it would show on his face turning his pale cheeks red and they'd sink away. Like children prodding a cobra with a stick and crying when it reared it's head and flared itself in warning. 

He stared into his porridge biting his lip. There was a hunger in him that the gray, lumpy concoction couldn't fill. Something without definition that gnawed on his insides. The hunger made his anger worse. Made his skin so flushed with it that he felt dizzy. 

"Murder anyone today, Riddle?" 

Tom's eyes slowly rose to meet those of the round-faced girl that had plopped in the seat across from him. No. Don't get angry. He scratched at the sore on his hand through the glove. If he ignored it, it would go away. The porridge was much more pleasant to look at anyway. 

"Riddle, Riddle, Riddle. You know eventually they're gonna come and get you and take you away." 

He could see the girl's skinny, dark-haired friend over his eyelashes. She was giving him the other look, the frightened one, and she was gripping at the girls arm, whispering something urgent that he couldn't quite hear. 

"Murderers don't just get awa--" 

His porridge flew at her eyes. The ceramic bowl shattered, bloodying her face. And everyone was watching. Staring. Boring more sores into his skin. He scrambled off of the bench, but his foot caught and he fell backwards onto his head. He was dizzy but he clawed his way up to his feet. The sores were burning now. Burning from the eyes that were approaching him now. Accusing eyes. Whispering a low, nervous hiss throughout the room. He was faintly aware of the round-faced girl's sputtering and crying, but it was drowned out by the whispers. The whispers swirling around him. He was so dizzy. There was something on his shoulder. He looked. A hand clasped tight to him. He looked up into the woman's (frightened) face and his knees gave out from under him. 

There was no thud as he hit the ground. Only a darkness that caught him like warm arms. Caring arms. So much better than eyes. And he dreamt of arms, but awoke, as always, to eyes. Six eyes. Attached to the faces that were attached to the people who were standing over him. Their sheer sterility told him immediately where he was. The infirmary. A new building compared to the rest of the orphanage. It smelled like ether and ammonia. They were speaking over him in hushed whispers. He caught pieces of it, but they sounded far away, like there was cotton stuffed into his ears. Possessed. Demonic. Attacks. Violent. Sores. 

They had found the sores. 

He struggled to move, to hide the sores from their burrowing eyes. Why couldn't he move? Leather straps. There were leather straps across his chest and legs. 

Treatment. Metrazol. Shock. 

There was a hand. An arm. For a moment he felt relief, but no, the hand had something in it. Something it was sticking sideways in his mouth. He tried to spit out but the hands held it down. More hands came, tying something tight on his arm. There was a pinprick and the pressure was released. The hands were faces again. A powerful wave of nausea hit him and he tried to speak, but it only came out a muffled sound. One of the women leaned over his face and her lips curled into a grotesque expression and her eyes flickered from blue to blood red. A forked tongue slid out from between her teeth and a whispering sound escaped. A whispering that turned to a screaming. She grabbed him by his shoulders and shook him, screaming words over and over that he didn't understand until finally, she shook him into unconsciousness.

* * *

  
  
  
  
Author's Note: Thanks for reading! This really wasn't supposed to have a TBC tacked to the end of it, but it seems that that is what is going to happen. The next part should be a bit longer than the first two. 


	3. Flax Fiber Angel

Tom pressed his lips against his laced fingers and prayed with all of his might for a miracle. He sat for hours on the pew in the very back of the church every day since his shock treatment and he clutched his hands together and rocked back and forth as he prayed. God had never listened to him before and he had no expectations that The Almighty might notice his existence this time, but he didn't know what else to do. The next day he would have another treatment and he couldn't think of anything short of a miracle to stop it. 

"Thomas Riddle, is it?" 

He nearly jumped out of his skin at the voice. His eyes snapped open to reveal a inhumanly tall, blonde man bending down to face him. No, not a man. A man could not look like this. It was an angel. 

It spoke again. "Well? I was told to look for the dark-haired little boy in the church. That his name would be Thomas Riddle. That's you, isn't it?" It's voice was deep and echoed off the stained glass windows. There was a slight accent tinting the words. Angels couldn't be German could they? Tom didn't think it likely. But, not long ago he wouldn't think it likely that he could throw boys twice his size or even porridge bowls with nothing but his anger. 

"Tom," he murmured. 

"What was that?" 

"I-I'm Tom," he said, struggling to speak more loudly through his tight throat. "Just Tom. Not... not Thomas." 

"I apologize. Mind if I sit, Tom?" 

Tom scratched at the sore on his neck and nodded. The angel sat next to him, only a breath from touching him at the hip, and the pew creaked under his weight. 

"What happened to your neck, Tom?" 

"Nothing." 

"Let me see," the angel said, gently taking Tom's hand away from the sore and looking at it. Tom shivered under the gaze. "Where did that come from?" 

"It's my punishment." 

"For what?" 

"For getting angry." 

The angel kept his hold on Tom's hand, resting the mass of palms and fingers on his thigh. It felt strange to be touched after being invisible for so long. "You're a very special person, Tom. You have a gift. Your mother was a witch and she seems to have passed her powers on to you." 

The world stopped for a moment. He jerked his hand away from the angel. 

"And God sent you to destroy me?" 

The angel blinked and then he laughed. Tom gripped the edge of the pew, overcome by fear. 

"No, no. Don't be frightened of me. Poor boy, what _have_ they taught you here? No. I am here to help you." 

"But my mother's a witch. That makes me..." 

"A wizard." 

"Evil." 

The angel smiled. "Perhaps. But not all wizards are evil. I am a wizard. Do you think I am evil?" 

Tom worried his lip. "I... I think you are an angel." 

"Do you?" The angel bent to look into Tom's eyes. "There will be another wizard who will come here and who will save you from this place. I know because I have sent him here. He is a tricky one and he may later denounce me. Remember that it is I who saved you when he would have otherwise ignored your situation. Remember that it is I who care for you. Do you trust me, Tom?" 

"I trust you." And he did. He couldn't help but trust his miracle. 

The angel straightened his back and turned as if he heard something. "I have to be going now, Tom." He put a small vial into Tom's hands. "Drink this. It will heal your sores." 

"Wait," said Tom, but the angel didn't seem to hear him. He stood, said a word that Tom did not understand and disappeared.   



End file.
